Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/106

 "Why not add like a burst balloon?"

"It is an apt expression."

"One more comment of that sort," she threatened, "and I'll throw you down the stairs. It is quite awhile since I have indulged in such exercise and I rather need it to keep in practice."

"I have no desire to be smashed against the floor," he said in mock gravity. "I am very sensitive. Besides I chip easily."

"Then be warned. Mend your ways."

"I'll be darned if I do."

"I am far too weak to be subjected to putrid puns."

"Forgive me, then."

"I need a rest."

"I have thought so for some time. I am surprised you so persistently avoid it."

"One thing at least I have to be thankful for," she sighed. "I never did like you and I always will."

"Now that we understand each other," said he, "why not tell me exactly what is troubling your precious head?"

"I'm homesick," she confessed. "I who haven't been home for forty-five years am now pining to return. But it is too late. My home has vanished. Now it is merely a house that some one else lives in. We never appreciate our blessings until we have lost them. Always we talk about the good old days but in the good old days we were never happy. They seem sweeter because they are seasoned with remembrance."

Madame Leota took a pinch of snuff from her solid gold snuffbox. Not till she had sneezed twice did she resume her meditations and when she did there were tears in her eyes. They may have been accounted for by the fact that the snuff was unusually strong.

"Nevertheless," she said, "I am soil-born and the call of the earth is in my blood. Broad fields are calling to me. I long to climb a mountain. I never climbed one in my life. I also would like to watch a sunrise. When I had the chance I never bothered. I want to walk bare-footed in new turned soil. There is no surer way to walk close to God."

"Well," he drawled, "you have money enough to have all